


Confusion through numbers, confusion through mutters

by SilverMyfanwy



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Cousins, Dinner, Family, Family Dinners, Gen, James Potter & Lily Evans Potter Live, Magic in the presence of Muggles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-10
Updated: 2018-11-10
Packaged: 2019-08-19 18:12:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16539617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverMyfanwy/pseuds/SilverMyfanwy
Summary: Dudley didn't stand a chance of being able to make sense of Cousin Harry's friend's exam scores and Uncle James's gravity-defying magic tricks all at the same time.OR, the AU where the Potters live and the annual dinner with the Dursleys is something everybody hates but still thoroughly enjoys winding the other family up.





	Confusion through numbers, confusion through mutters

“Do we have to go?” James and Harry asked Lily at the same time. They hadn’t planned it.

“Yes.” Lily answered firmly. “We do.”

Harry and James both stared despondently at their dinner.

“Why?” James asked.

“You ask this _every_ _year_.” Lily reminded him.

“In the hope that your reasoning for why we have to go will have improved.” James paused expectantly. Lily didn’t say anything. “Has it?”

“It hasn’t changed, so I doubt you’ll consider it to have improved.”

Harry and James shook their heads.

“When do we leave?”

“Nine.”

“In the morning?”

“Yes.”

Harry groaned. “And it’s on a Saturday?”

“Yes.”

“Are we Apparating?” James asked.

“Of course not. Petunia will be furious if we literally appear on their doorstep. We’ll drive.”

James perked up. “Can I drive?”

“I still think you Confunded the driving instructor.” Lily said.

“It’ll be fine! You can just magic anything that’s looking like we’re going to crash into it and maybe Confund some people and well get there all in one piece!”

“No.”

“But I can drive! Honest!” James insisted, sounding almost desperate.

“What do you do to turn on the indicators?” Lily asked.

“Um… you flick the thingy?” James tried hopefully. “Or do you press one of the pedals?”

“Even I know that’s not how you turn indicators on.” Harry said flatly.

“Exactly. _I’m_ driving.” Lily emphasised.

“Spoilsport.”

“What am I supposed to talk about with Dudley?” Harry asked. “We have nothing in common.”

“Talk about school.” James said without thinking.

“Hogwarts? No way! They’ll hate that!”

James winced. “True. Just… think of something.”

“And don’t Silencio him.” Lily instructed.

“He wouldn’t notice if I did! All he does is eat and watch the TV!”

James nodded. “Harry has a point, dear.”

“That’s not the point” And don’t you ‘dear’ me!”

-

They were silent the whole drive from Godric’s Hollow to 4 Privet Drive, Little Whingeing, Surrey.

Lily drove.

Harry looked at the map.

James pretended to be sleeping, but Lily and Harry both knew that he wasn’t.

Lily parked the car a few streets away so that the Dursleys wouldn’t be able to come out and greet them. “Have you got the flowers, Harry?”

Harry held up the bunch of flowers, bought at a petrol station, out in distaste. They were dripping water all over his jeans. “Yes.”

“And is your wand hidden?”

“It’s in my pocket.”

“Which one?”

“The one inside my hoody.”

“Good.” Lily started walking towards Privet Drive.

Harry and James hung back behind her, walking as slowly as they could without getting told off.

They got closer, and closer, and closer.

Lily had no need to knock on the door as clearly Aunt Petunia had managed to see them coming and get to the door first.

“Lily.” her voice was even more disapproving than it had been the year before, perhaps due to the fact that Harry’s hair had now caught up to James’s in levels of un-tamable messiness. (The spells Lily had cast for previous meetings no longer worked n Harry's hair and only seemed to make it messier.)

“Petunia! It’s so nice to see you!” they hugged rather awkwardly and neither of them were smiling.

“Petunia.” James gave the biggest smile he could.

“James. Hello Harry.”

“Hello Aunt Petunia.”

“Come in through to the living room. Dudley! Come out of the kitchen and talk to Aunt Lily and Uncle James and Cousin Harry! I’m just going to go and fetch Vernon, he’s checking the flower beds in the back garden.” Aunt Petunia took the flowers and shooed the Potter into a beige, cream and sickly yellow coloured living room. Tasseled throws and off-white cushions were arranged on the sofas, the carpet was patterned with dark greed fleur-de-lis and the light shade on the ceiling made Harry want to throw up. A lace curtain was open slightly at the window- clearly Aunt Petunia had been standing there and watching out for them.

James checked underneath the sofa cushions before he sat down.

“What are you doing that for?” Lily hissed. “They’re going to be in here in a minute!”

“I’m looking out for anything they might have put there to catch us, well, me, out.”

They managed to sit down just before Dudley came in.

“Hello Dudley.” Lily smiled.

Dudley grunted and picked up a TV remote, managing to squash himself into a large armchair. “Hello.” When the TV started, he became silent, occasionally chuckling or grunting at the screen. He paid the Potters no attention at all.

Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia came in. “Turn the TV down please, Dudley.” Vernon asked.

“I don’t want to turn it down” Dudley said, fishing in a pocket for a biscuit which he stuffed in his mouth.

The volume on the TV turned down. Dudley didn’t seem to notice, but Vernon and Petunia did and they whipped their heads towards the Potters. They had gone rather pale. Lily gave James a brief, furtive glance but he showed no signs of having done anything.

“How is work going, Vernon?” Lily asked cordially.

-

Over lamb chops, new potatoes and mint sauce, the weakly-flowing conversation turned to education. Dudley, to none of the Potter’s surprise, was one of the worst in his class.

“He’s a little bit lacking in the academic department, but there are far more important things in life, aren’t there Dudders?” Vernon beamed proudly.

“Harry does excellently in school.” James boasted, even if it wasn’t strictly true. Harry did reasonably well in school, although he would do far better if he spent less time playing wizard chess with Ron. “His friend Hermione is the only one smarter than him in his year. What was it that she scored on that exam at the end of this year, Harry?”

“Three hundred and twenty percent.” Harry said.

Dudley gaped at him; tiny, fluffy eyebrows furrowed. Confusion was not a look that suited him well. Harry liked seeing it.

“She also got one hundred and twelve percent on a different subject in our first year.” he added.

“Three hundred and twenty? One hundred and twelve?” Dudley was very confused. “How do you-”

“Never mind, Dudders.” Petunia said hastily.

“Remind me what it is you work as, James?” Vernon grunted, mouth full of potatoes as he tried to change the subject.

James sat up and said, with a completely straight face; “I’m a magician at children’s birthday parties.”

“Doing card tricks and pulling rabbits out of hats? That sort of thing, coins from behind ears and ribbons out of sleeves?”

James nodded. Petunia and Vernon threw their heads back and laughed, which sent bits of Uncle Vernon’s dinner spraying all over the room.

“What a ridiculous job!” Aunt Petunia laughed. “Any fool can do that!”

“Just a load of utter rubbish, if you ask me.” Vernon said. “Made to trick hard working people out of their hard-earned money by using as little effort as possible. No better than a common scammer.”

“You can do magic tricks, Uncle James?” Dudley asked, eyes fixed on something other that the TV screen for once as he stared at James.

James nodded. “I can do magic tricks, Dudley.”

“Go on then.” Dudley continued to stare at James. “Do one. Prove it.”

“Yes, let’s see if you’re any good.” Vernon challenged.

Harry and Lily could both feel each other trying to reign in their anger at the way James was being spoken to. They both prayed that James wouldn’t do anything rash and get the Ministry involved.

“What sort of trick would you like me to do?” James asked calmly.

Dudley thought for a moment. “Do your best trick.”

James silently picked a paper napkin up from the table, shook it out and held it in the air with his thumb and forefinger of his left hand. He raised his right hand and clicked his fingers at the same time as muttering a spell under his breath.

The napkin caught fire.

The Dursleys gasped and jerked away from the flames. James let the napkin burn for a few seconds, then clicked his fingers and muttered again. The flames went out, leaving behind a white napkin that looked like it had never been near a flame in its life.

Dudley gaped at the napkin. “Wow Uncle James!”

Vernon and Petunia were both looking at James and the napkin in horror, knowing full well that he had just been muttering real spells under his breath, unlike Dudley who thought that they were just fake mumbo-jumbo.

Harry had been told at a very young age that although Vernon and Petunia knew that the Potters were magic and despised them for it, Dudley did not and just despised the all anyway. To him, Aunt Lily was the sister that his mum didn’t like, Uncle James was the man his father frowned down upon and called a lazy good-for-nothing-waif-out-of-a-gutter and Harry was the cousin who went to a special school, had special needs and was generally a bit odd, with anger issues, and best kept away from. This put Vernon and Petunia in a rather difficult situation. They didn’t want to let onto their son about the magic, but at the same time they both really wanted Vernon to yell at James about his unnatural behaviour and send the Potters out of the house.

They couldn’t do this, so instead they just sat and seethed in silent fury.

“Do another one.” Dudley demanded. “Do another trick. But make it better this time.”

“Say please.” James said.

Dudley scowled. “Please.”

James muttered some more and Dudley’s glass of squash began to rise up into the air, the bright orange liquid inside staying perfectly balanced. Then the glass began to spin, going faster and faster until it was no more than a grey and orange blur. Still, no liquid left the glass and it remained level. The glass stopped spinning suddenly and descended back onto the table.

There was silence, the sort where you could hear the buzzing TV, the singing birds outside the window and the cars driving past the house. All the blood had left Aunt Petunia’s face, Uncle Vernon had turned dark purple and seemed to be having difficulty managing not to explode and Dudley’s eyes were wide with amazement and shock.

“Shall we have some pudding?” Aunt Petunia asked shakily. “I think we’d best get you a new drink, Dudley, in case something has happened to that one.” she picked up the glass with a paper napkin and left the room, holding the glass out gingerly, far in front of her.

Vernon went after Aunt Petunia, leaving Dudley alone with the Potters yet again.

“How do you do those tricks? How did you make that glass float?” Dudley demanded.

James gave him a wink. “Tricks of the trade. Big secrets, I’d get fired from the SMG if I told you how I did it.”

“The SMG? What’s the SMG?”

“The Secret Magicians' Guild. I really out not to be even telling you this much, but as long as they never find out I said anything…”

“Oh, no, no, no, no, no.” Dudley said hurriedly. “No, no, they won’t find out. I won’t tell them, I promise.”

“Good, good. But I’m afraid that I still can tell you the secrets of my tricks, no matter how many promises you make Dudley.”

“Can you how me another trick?” Dudley asked eagerly.

James’ eyes lit up.

-

No one spoke on the walk from 4 Privet drive to the car. They got in and put on their seat-belts.

“That was fun.” James said.

Harry finally let himself laugh.

“Petunia and Vernon are never going to forgive you for doing those tricks.” Lily told James flatly. He had joined Harry in laughing.

“I’ve never seen anyone so confused in my life!” Harry wiped tears from his eyes.

Even Lily giggled a bit.

THE END.


End file.
